Night Train Lane
Dick "Night Train" Lane (16 April, 1928 - 29 January, 2002) was an football player, best known as a defensive back for the Detroit Lions.
He was born in Austin, Texas and raised by Ella Lane, a woman who found him as an infant in a dumpster.
He was signed in 1952 as an undrafted free agent by the Los Angeles Rams. He went to the open tryout that led to his signing because he disliked his job in an aircraft factory. In his rookie season he set an NFL single season record for interceptions with 14. While with the Rams he acquired the nickname "Night Train" from a hit record by Buddy Morrow frequently played by his teammate, Tom Fears. He initially didn't like the nickname but it grew on him after it gained national attention. It first appeared in print describing a tackle in a Rams exhibition game: Dick "Night Train" Lane derails Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice.
He wore number 81, unusual for a defensive back, because he was initially projected as an end. The ends playing in front of him on the Rams, Tom Fears and Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch, were stars, so Coach Joe Stydahar tried Lane at defensive back, and a legend was born.
He was traded to the Chicago Cardinals in 1954 and to the Detroit Lions in 1960, where he played through the end of his career in 1965.
He was particularly noted as a hard hitter, who liked to tackle by the head and neck (a technique outlawed today). This tackle was sometimes called a "Night Train Necktie".
He was selected to six Pro Bowls, and to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1974. In 1969 he was named the best cornerback of the first fifty years of pro football.
He was married three times, including his best known marriage to jazz singer Dinah Washington. He was the last of her seven husbands when she died in December, 1963.
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